


we will all burn together

by Lise



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Bickering, Enemies to Still Enemies, Everyone is cranky, Frienemies maybe, Gen, Hurt Kylo Ren, Hux is Not Nice, POV Hux, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Reluctant Caretaking, all of that shit, well Hux is cranky and Kylo and out of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-24
Updated: 2017-01-24
Packaged: 2018-09-19 16:58:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9451226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lise/pseuds/Lise
Summary: Hux's ambitions are in ruins with the exploding planet behind him. If it were up to him, he'd have left Ren there. He'd deserve it.Unfortunately, it isn't up to him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this shortly after The Force Awakens came out, got freaked out by the fandom, ran away for a while, came back, and finally finished it almost a year later. I have to say: it was a lot of fun writing from Hux's very unhappy POV. 
> 
> Here it is. The sad tale of Hux's having to drag Kylo Ren away from the wreckage of all of his plans, and being really grumpy about it. (Every fic I write has a flippant summary. That's this one's.) Also: worst road trip ever. 
> 
> With many thanks to my beta and resident Star Wars expert, [ameliarating](http://ameliarating.tumblr.com). Any remaining weirdness is on me, not her.

Hux’s great work, his _legacy,_ was falling apart under his feet, and the Supreme Leader had sent him chasing after a man with all the self control of a rampaging bantha. The world, he thought, was deeply unfair. He had done everything right. _Everything._

If Ren hadn’t insisted on capturing the droid rather than destroying it. If Ren hadn’t insisted that the scavenger was all they needed and hurried them off Xavin IV. If Ren didn’t for some _bizarre_ reason have the Supreme Leader’s ear, and his favor…

He checked the location of the beacon transmitting Ren’s location again, piloting the light ship toward the trees. The crust was cracking open faster and faster, the planet devouring itself. He half expected to find himself flying over one of the chasms, Ren sucked into the molten core. He half hoped for it, even knowing the displeasure he would face in that situation.

No such luck, though.

It had been some time since Hux had piloted anything, but he managed to maneuver the small ship down into the trees where he could see what had to be Ren’s body sprawled on the ground. The buckling of the ground nearly threw him off his feet when he jumped into the snow.

Why did the Supreme Leader value Ren so much? Was it simply his…ability with the Force? That could not mean much, if a half-trained scavenger and a deprogrammed stormtrooper could defeat him. For half a second, wading over, Hux considered leaving and lying to the Supreme Leader, telling him it had been too late – but no, it would be seen through in seconds and Hux doubted Snoke would take kindly to deception.

Ren’s eyes were closed, his skin nearly as white as the snow except for the red slash cutting across his face. Hux felt his lip curl and shook his head. It was not easy to throw Ren over his shoulder – for all his wiry build, he was tall enough to make it awkward and not light – and the moment he did it he felt Ren inhale sharply.

“Stay still,” Hux said.

“Saber,” Ren rasped.

“Make another one,” Hux said ruthlessly. “This planet is falling apart. I wasted enough time finding you.”

“Doesn’t work like that.” Ren squirmed. “The saber. I need…”

Hux swore under his breath but cast about. _Damn you and your antiquated weapon both._ He found the metal hilt, finally, cast in the snow, and picked it up. “There,” he said. “Do we have your permission to leave the planet now, Lord Ren?”

“Do not mock me,” Ren said, but his voice slurred like a drunkard. Hux retraced his steps back through the snow and onto the ship, dumping Ren in the bay with little care and throwing himself into the pilot’s chair as the planet heaved again.

“Try not to die,” he said tersely, tossing the saber on the ground as well, and steered the ship toward the stars, closing his ears to the pathetic whimpering sounds of his passenger.

* * *

Ren fell silent, after a while. Silent but for panting, ragged breaths, anyway, which at least told Hux that he was still alive. The death throes of the planet nearly ended them, but _nearly_ was not enough. He set an automatic course for the nearest non-Republic planet and went back into the hold, crouching down next to him.

“The traitor do this to you,” he said, not really expecting an answer. Ren turned his head a fraction, opening the eye that wasn’t gummed shut with dried blood.

“Dead,” he croaked. Well, that was something. Though he wouldn’t put it past Ren to flub that, too. “The scavenger,” he went on. Hux had to scoff.

“I begin to wonder what your training was good for,” he said. The eyelid shut. Hux was almost disappointed. He could have used an argument, or at least something to beat his frustration against. Instead he moved Ren to his back and fetched what medical supplies this ship had. Some bacta patches, a few medpacs…Hux stared at the lot in disgust before setting it aside and cutting blood clotted robes away, peeling them off to reveal an ugly hole in Ren’s side, scorched around the edges. “Or what you’re good for, for that matter. What did this?”

Ren’s throat bobbed. “Bowcaster.” Hux gave him a sharp look and pulled him up to look. Matching hole through his back, so at least he didn’t have to pull out the quarrel. Not many other than Wookies used bowcasters, though, not anymore, and Hux didn’t believe in coincidences.

“I take it the family reunion did not go well,” he said, tearing open a bacta patch. Ren twitched, inhale stuttering.

“I have – no family,” he said, barely above a hiss. “Han Solo. Is dead.”

That got Hux’s attention. “Dead,” he repeated, pausing for a moment before he remembered what he was doing and mopped up the blood around the hole with Ren’s robes, wrinkling his nose at the mess it was making of his own clothing. Ren didn’t answer, and Hux valiantly resisted the urge to poke him. “Ren. Han Solo is dead?”

“Yes.” Ren’s voice sounded strained. “I killed him. The Wookie shot me.”

Hux pulled back, aware that by doing so he was letting Ren bleed. “You killed Solo.”

“Is that not – what I said?” Ren thunked his head against the floor in what must have been a bid to manage the pain. “I ran him through and he fell.”

Hux was a mixture of surprised and impressed. He would not have thought Ren had it in him. He would have expected better of the legendary Han Solo, though he supposed the man must have been old. “Lucky for you that the Wookie missed,” he said, returning slowly to his ministrations. For some reason, Ren flinched.

“Lucky,” he echoed, voice dull.

The bleeding had slowed, at least. Saber wounds were clean, and cauterized most flesh in their wake. If it weren’t for that Ren might already have bled to death (and Hux’s life would be that much easier). “Given the distance to anywhere non-hostile that’ll have med-droids, your face is probably going to scar,” Hux said bluntly. Ren’s lips twisted.

“Then it will scar. I am not some – ahhh.” He gritted his teeth as Hux pulled his robes free of one of his wounds. “—some vain and foolish youngling,” he panted, eyes slits. Hux looked at him, thought: _not vain, maybe._ He shrugged.

“How did the scavenger beat you?” He asked instead, genuinely curious. Ren’s face did something odd, not a look Hux was familiar with.

“She has skill,” he said finally, haltingly. “With the Force. Remarkable strength. Untrained, yes, but…” He trailed off. Hux thought he could hear near _longing_ in Ren’s voice, and gave him a disgusted look.

“And this _untrained_ womp rat from a backwater planet defeated you,” he said. “I look forward to hearing what Supreme Leader Snoke thinks of that.” Ren didn’t flinch, exactly, but his expression tightened, and Hux was cruelly pleased.

“Rey,” Ren said after a moment. “Her name is Rey.”

“I don’t particularly care,” Hux informed him.

“It might be important,” Ren insisted, voice thin. “The Force doesn’t – move randomly. Patterns, and…and…”

“Keep your mysticism,” Hux said. “What good it’s done. This is your fault.” Ren said nothing, breathing shallowly, so Hux went on. “Your fault for insisting on capturing the droid rather than simply destroying it. Bringing the scavenger onto this planet. Running off to a duel _that you lost_ rather than defending the base. Should I continue?”

Still Ren said nothing. When Hux glanced at him properly, his face was ashen and he was clearly unconscious. “Useless,” Hux sneered, even as he jammed his fingers against Ren’s neck to ensure there was a pulse still there. He wondered if they were the only survivors. If Captain Phasma had escaped. “I would rather her than you,” Hux informed Ren’s unconscious body.

Of course, he did not respond.

* * *

The ship had been damaged in the explosion. It informed Hux as much before they had covered even enough ground to take them to Rakata Prime, let alone somewhere useful, and he was forced to make a landing on a small planet he didn’t even recognize. The uneven landing seemed to rouse Ren, or at least he turned his head with a moan. His skin was ghastly pale and sheened with sweat. Pathetic.

Hux stalked around the interior of the craft, gathering supplies. He was half tempted to leave Ren here and let some scavenger find him, but the Supreme Leader would undoubtedly take that poorly. He prodded the man’s prone form with his foot.

“Up, Ren,” he said harshly. “We’ve landed.”

Ren’s eyes opened a sliver and he looked blearily at Hux. “Where,” he said.

“Unknown Regions, fourteen parsecs south of Ilum,” Hux said. “I didn’t have time to grab a proper chart, so I can’t say what the planet’s called.” Ren frowned, and Hux went on, “no, not our destination. The ship took damage.”

Hux’s eyes looked foggy. “Took the saber,” he said. Hux felt his lip curl.

“Yes, I took your precious saber,” he said. “Now get up. The ship needs repairs.”

Ren blinked at him blankly, and then his eyes seemed to clear. Hux watched him struggle to sit up, hissing as he put weight on his impaled shoulder. The bacta patch on his face was peeling off to show the raised and ugly slash. Good thing about the mask. “Hux,” he said, voice rasping and harsh as he struggled to his feet, leaning heavily against the ship’s hull.

“That is my name,” he said irritably. How had it come to this, he wondered mournfully. Stuck with a wounded, half sensible mystic on a backwater planet, all his plans ruined through no fault of his own. Everything should have worked out _perfectly_. If not for Ren’s damnable meddling- “You should change,” he said, gesturing at the distinctive black robes, variously blood stained and torn and burnt. Ren stared at him.

“Why,” he said flatly. “If the inhabitants are loyal, they won’t question the orders of a General. If they aren’t, you will kill them anyway. What difference does it make what I wear?”

Hux opened his mouth to object and closed it. _It offends me_ was not, he thought, an answer he was willing to give, or probably a particularly compelling one. “Fine,” he ground out. “Do what you wish.” He turned and opened the hatch out onto the planet, stopping when he realized Ren wasn’t following him. He was staring at his lightsaber lying on the floor where Hux had dropped it, frowning. After a long moment he picked it up, though it looked reluctant.

“Can you use a blaster?” Hux asked. Ren stared at him again before answering.

“I can use a blaster.”

“Can you _aim_ a blaster,” Hux asked. Something flashed across Ren’s face that was gone too quickly for Hux to identify it.

“Yes. But I don’t need one.” Ren pushed past him and strode down onto the rocky surface of the planet. His gait was uneven and unsteady. If Ren fell over, Hux decided, he was not going to catch him.

“Of course not,” Hux muttered, checking his own before following. “Not a _Knight of Ren._ ”

They climbed up and over a ridge to where they could look down on the base below. There wasn’t any movement, but at least it looked intact, more or less. Ren was supporting himself on a rock ledge and sweating, breathing hard. Hux felt his lip curl.

“If you need to stay here and rest,” he began, not quite able to keep the snide note from his voice. Ren’s head jerked up, his gaze surprisingly sharp.

“No,” he said, voice harsh, and pushed himself upright. “That – won’t be necessary.”

Halfway down the slope Ren stumbled and fell. Hux caught him. It would be just _perfect,_ he thought bitterly, if Ren died _now._ He gave the man a shake. “Focus, Ren. Do you want to look weak in front of these backwater soldiers?”

“I am – not weak.” Ren grabbed onto Hux’s jacket and dragged himself upright, eyes boring into Hux’s only a few inches away. “I killed General Solo. What have you done? Built a bigger _Death Star_ only to lose it moments later?” He sneered.

“ _I_ destroyed the Hosnian System,” Hux snapped back. “ _I_ crushed the Republic’s capital at a single stroke-”

“And _clearly_ that has done so much to weaken their Resistance.” The wound across Ren’s face ploughed through his features, a furrow of ruined flesh it was hard to look away from. Hux gritted his teeth.

“I saved your pathetic _life,_ Ren.”

Oddly, that made Ren let go. He pushed Hux away and took a stumbling step back. “Not of your own initiative, I think,” he said, but the anger was gone from his voice. Hux was almost disappointed.

He wanted a brawl like he hadn’t since the Academy, even if Ren wouldn’t supply much of one right now.

The base was empty save for the corpse of one stormtrooper and a decommissioned patrol droid. The trooper had been shot in the back of the head. Hux swept the rest while Ren sprawled in a chair in the control booth, breathing hard, but found no hint of what had happened to the rest of the garrison. His hackles rose.

“Don’t worry, General Hux,” Ren said when he returned to retrieve him, smirk made grotesque by the pull of his wound. “I will protect you.”

“You couldn’t protect yourself right now if it came to a fight,” Hux snapped. Ren’s head lolled a little sideways, his eyelids fluttering. “We need to find the med bay,” Hux said, striding over and hauling Ren none too gently out of the chair. “Hopefully there will still be a droid there we can use.”

* * *

There was, but it wasn’t in particularly good shape. Hux stared at it in frustration, though he kept his curses silent. He’d pushed Ren onto one of the beds, where he was murmuring something to himself.

“Be quiet,” Hux snapped. “I am trying to _think._ ”

“Skywalker was a fair hand with droids,” Ren said. Hux turned and stared at him, eyes narrowing. 

“Skywalker,” Hux said slowly. Ren frowned.

“No. Wait. Darth Vader was. According to some records. Though also…” Ren trailed off, leaving the sentence curiously unfinished.

“A pity _Lord Vader_ is not here to assist you,” Hux said, not a little snidely. He glared at the droid a second longer, then turned and stalked over to Ren. Something to wash the blood off, at least, he thought. A bacta tank would be ideal, but of course that was too much to ask. Naturally. What else _could_ he expect.

Ren’s eyes closed. “Tired.”

“Oh, yes,” Hux snapped. “Because _you_ have been doing all the work here. Use your – magic, the Force, whatever it is. Fix the droid. Or at least do _something_ useful.”

Ren didn’t move, and neither did the droid. Hux shook his head in disgust and moved away, further back, looking through cabinets. He would come back from this, he told himself. Just as he had clawed himself up the ranks despite the stain of bastardy, he would recover from this – _minor setback_ as well.

He glanced over his shoulder at Ren, who was staring blankly at the ceiling. “Why did it go to her?” He asked. Hux wrinkled his nose and shook his head.

“I am going to find the communications array and see if _that,_ at least, will work,” he said flatly. Ren turned his head to look at Hux.

“Poor General Hux,” he said, an odd hint of a laugh in his voice. “It maddens you, the idea of things beyond your control.”

 _What maddens me right now is having to deal with you,_ Hux thought irritably, but simply turned on his heel and left Ren where he was.

The communications array was working, but all the channels Hux tried seemed to be jammed. He banged a fist against the face of the display in frustration and gave up, returning to Ren. He seemed to be asleep, open-mouthed and breathing raspy but steady. Hux checked the wounds in his side and shoulder, though he couldn’t actually do much other than replacing the old bacta patch with a new one.

Hux sat down and watched Ren sleep. It was not a stimulating activity, but he couldn’t think of much else to do. He wondered vaguely what had happened to the rest of the group manning this base. Mutiny? Starvation? Attack? No, the last would have left marks…

The day was catching up with him. Hux gave Ren one last look and stood up: either he would live through the night or he wouldn’t, and there wasn’t much he could do either way.

He found an officer’s quarters tucked away in one corner with a dismal view of the planet. There was a bottle of Chandrilan Blue ‘439 under the bed.

Hux poured himself three generous glasses and then fell into bed. He thought he could be forgiven for the indulgence, given the circumstances.

* * *

Hux woke up with Ren looming over him, fever spots high in his pale cheeks. “Ren!” Hux said sharply, pulling up the sheet and shying away before he stilled himself, more alarmed than he wanted to be. “What are you doing?”

“Wake up. The Supreme Leader is coming,” he said, voice hoarse. Hux sat up, looking past Ren to the door like he would see the Supreme Leader appear there.

“What?” He said, embarrassingly near to a squawk. “ _Himself?_ ”

“No,” Ren said, as though the question itself was stupid. “Sending a ship.” He coughed, eyes glassy, but smiled. “He wishes me to complete my training.”

Hux stared at Ren, trying to judge the odds that this was a fever dream versus the possibility that the Supreme Leader could, in fact, project his consciousness across the galaxy into Ren’s mind. The former seemed rather more likely, but Hux suspected he could not rule out the latter. He knew very little about the Force, but Ren did look a little delirious.

“I shall be ready for his arrival, then,” Hux said after a pause.

“I will ensure that he knows that you have mitigated your failure by assisting me,” Ren said graciously. Hux’s face spasmed.

“ _My_ failure?” He demanded. “What of _yours?_ This is _your_ doing.”

“The Supreme Leader is pleased with me,” Ren said. His eyes went from glassy to fever bright. “I passed the test. Now I will move forward. He will show me how.”

Something prickled down Hux’s spine. He reached for his shirt and pulled it on. “Do you mind?” He asked, when Ren simply stood there swaying. “If that is all you came here to say-”

“You do take off your uniform when you sleep,” Ren said.

Hux stared at him. “Of course I do.”

“I had wondered.” Hux thought to think, suddenly, how long Ren had been standing over him while he slept. The thought made him distinctly uneasy. Something seemed to have…slipped, in Ren. He had never been very stable – the destructive fits were evidence enough of that. But now…

Something had definitely changed.

“What are you waiting for?” Hux asked, gesturing at the door. “I’d like to get dressed.”

Ren just looked at him. The livid slash was distracting, no longer covered; it pulled the eye. The damage was both as bad as expected and less disfiguring than Hux would have thought. It certainly made Ren look harder, more dangerous. Perhaps that was why he seemed to wear it almost proudly.

“Well?” Hux repeated, though he could feel himself tensing. What was this? Some kind of power play? He could see spots of blood on the bandaging on Ren’s side.

He smiled oddly. “It’s a good thing you were here,” Ren said. “There should be witnesses, for this.”

He turned and stalked out. Hux stared after him, hating the odd feeling crawling down his spine.

He took a deep breath and got out of bed, running his fingers through his hair. It needed a wash; his uniform should be pressed.

So Ren had gone completely mad.

There was opportunity in that.


End file.
